I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – too?
Then there's a pair of us?
Don't tell! they'd advertise – you know!
How dreary – to be – Somebody!
How public – like a Frog –
To tell one's name – the livelong June –
To an admiring Bog! -Emily Dickinson

Saturday, 14 July 2012

NOT A SEIZURE

Two nights ago, I started out for the living room, pushing
Rodney. It was about 3 or 4 in the morning & I’d woken up wanting to sit in
the living room. About 7 feet from the bed, suddenly, my body went into violent
tremors and I could feel ALL my strength leave. I remained conscious enough to
pull up on Rodneys bike brakes and slam into the hall wall for support. Meanwhile,
Heather, hearing all this, comes screaming out of her room just in time to see
me slide along the wall desperately reaching for the big leather chair in
the living room.

Seizure, I’m thinking. This is the worst – but I’ve had two similar
incidents recently. Surely this must be seizures. The Dave is on vacation this
week, but his nurse answers my message and instructs me to see my GP or go to
emergency. Today. Getting serious now. Lucky for me, Margaret is not yet on vacation, so I
book an emergency appointment. She quizzes me: One side? Both sides? What was I
doing before it happened? Did I stay conscious? Heather – how did it look to
you? Margaret is a great GP - not only that, her late husband died of brain
cancer. She has lots of experience – professional and personal. She decides it was “progress
of disease” or a blood pressure/heart rate problem. Moving a little too fast from sedentary position
to movement. My BP shot up, and my heart rate couldn't keep up.For a year she monitored her husband for seizures but it was never
that – more like what I have. She bumps my steroids up to 8 mg.

The next night, for about 6 hours, I keep waking up with
pain shooting up my legs. When I finally get out of bed, take my meds and make
a note, I am astonished that my handwriting if clear and legible. First time in
months and totally unexpected.

3 comments:

Our bodies are amazing and surprising things. After my dad had brain surgery, he could suddenly hear again. Super-hearing, actually - I'm known as the one with hearing super-powers and he was noticing things I had to stop and listen carefully for in order to hear. After a few weeks, that side effect went a way, but is was very strange while it lasted.